CHAPTER V. THE DINNER. THE sun was now terminating his diurnal course, and the lights were glittering on the festal board. When the ladies had retired, and the Burgundy had taken two or three tours of the table, the following conversation took place : SQUIRE HEADLONG. Push about the bottle: Mr. Escot, it stands with you. No heeltaps. As to skylight, liberty-hall. MR. MAC LAUREL. Really, Squire Headlong, this is the vara nactar itsel. Ye hae saretainly descovered the tarrestrial paradise, but it flows wi' a better leecor than milk an' honey. THE REVEREND DOCTOR GASTER. Hem! Mr. Mac Laurel! there is a degree of profaneness in that observation, which I should not have looked for in so staunch a supporter of church and state. Milk and honey was the pure food of the antediluvian patriarchs, who knew not the use of the grape, happily for them.—(Tossing off a bumper of Burgundy.) MR. ESCOT. Happily, indeed! The first inhabitants of the world knew not the use either of wine or animal food; it is, therefore, by no means incredible that they lived to the age of several centuries, free from war, and commerce, and arbitrary government, and every other species of desolating wickedness. But man was then a very different animal to what he now is: he had not the faculty of speech; he was not encumbered with clothes; he lived in the open air; his first step out of which, as Hamlet truly observes, is into his grave. * His first dwellings, of course, were the hol * See Lord Monboddo's Ancient Metaphysics. lows of trees and rocks. In process of time he began to build : thence grew villages; thence grew cities. Luxury, oppression, poverty, misery, and disease kept pace with the progress of his pretended improvements, till, from a free, strong, healthy, peaceful animal, he has become a weak, distempered, cruel, carnivorous slave. THE REVEREND DOCTOR GASTER. Your doctrine is orthodox, in so far as you assert that the original man was not encumbered with clothes, and that he lived in the open air; but, as to the faculty of speech, that, it is certain, he had, for the authority of Moses MR. ESCOT. Of course, sir, I do not presume to dissent from the very exalted authority of that most enlightened astronomer and profound cosmogonist, who had, moreover, the advantage of being inspired; but when I indulge myself with a ramble in the fields of speculation, and attempt to deduce what is probable and rational from the sources of analysis, experience, and comparison, I confess I am too often apt to lose sight of the doctrines of that great fountain of theological and geological philosophy. Push about the bottle. SQUIRE HEADLONG. MR. FOSTER. Do you suppose the mere animal life of a wild man, living on acorns, and sleeping on the ground, comparable in felicity to that of a Newton, ranging through unlimited space, and penetrating into the arcana of universal motion-to that of a Locke, unravelling the labyrinth of mind-to that of a Lavoisier, detecting the minutest combinations of matter, and reducing all nature to its elements to that of a Shakspeare, piercing and developing the springs of passion-or of a Milton, identifying himself, as it were, with the beings of an invisible world! MR. ESCOT. You suppose extreme cases: but; on the score of happiness, what comparison can you make between the tranquil being of the wild man of the woods and the wretched and turbulent existence of Milton, the victim of persecution, poverty, blindness, and neg lect? The records of literature demonstrate that Happiness and Intelligence are seldom sisters. Even if it were otherwise, it would prove nothing. The many are always sacrificed to the few. Where one man advances, hundreds retrograde; and the balance is always in favour of universal deterioration. MR. FOSTER. Virtue is independent of external circumstances. The exalted understanding looks into the truth of things, and in its own peaceful contemplations, rises superior to the world. No philosopher would resign his mental acquisitions for the purchase of any terrestrial good. MR. ESCOT. In other words, no man whatever would resign his identity, which is nothing more than the consciousness of his perceptions, as the price of any acquisition. But every man, without exception, would willingly effect a very material change in his relative situation to other individuals. Unluckily for the rest of your argument, the understanding of literary people is for the most part exalted, as you express it, not so much by the love of truth and virtue, as by arrogance and self-sufficiency; and there is, perhaps, less disinterestedness, less liberality, less general benevolence, and more envy, hatred, and uncharitableness among them, than among any other description of men. (The eye of Mr. Escot, as he pronounced these words, rested very innocently and unintentionally on Mr. Gall.) MR. GALL. You allude, sir, I presume, to my review. Pardon me, sir. MR. ESCOT. You will be convinced it is impossible I can allude to your review, when I assure you that I have never read a single page of it. MR. GALL, MR. TREACLE, MR. NIGHTSHADE, AND MR. MAC LAUREL. Never read our review!!!! MR. ESCOT. Never. I look on periodical criticism in general to be a species of shop, where panegyric and defamation are sold, wholesale, retail, and for exportation. I am not inclined to be a purchaser of these commodities, or to encourage a trade which I consider pregnant with mischief. MR. MAC LAUREL. I can readily conceive, sir, ye wou'd na wullinly encoorage ony dealer in panegeeric: but, frae the manner in which ye speak o' the first creetics an' scholars o' the age, I shou'd think ye wou'd hae a leetle mair predilaction for deefamation. MR. ESCOT. I have no predilection, sir, for defamation. I make a point of speaking the truth on all occasions; and it seldom happens that the truth can be spoken without some stricken deer pronouncing it a libel. MR. NIGHTSHADE. You are perhaps, sir, an enemy to literature in general? MR. ESCOT. If I were, sir, I should be a better friend to periodical critics. Buz! SQUIRE HEADLONG. MR. TREACLE. May I simply take the liberty to inquire into the basis of your objection? MR. ESCOT. I conceive that periodical criticism disseminates superficial knowledge, and its perpetual adjunct, vanity; that it checks in the youthful mind the habit of thinking for itself; that it delivers partial opinions, and thereby misleads the judgment; that it is never conducted with a view to the general interests of literature, but to serve the interested ends of individuals, and the miserable purposes of party. MR. MAC LAUREL. Ye ken, sir, a mon mun leeve. MR. ESCOT. While he can live honourably, naturally, justly, certainly no longer. MR. MAC LAUREL. Every mon, sir, leeves according to his ain notions of honour an' justice: there is a wee defference amang the learned wi' respact to the defineetion o' the terms. MR. ESCOT. I believe it is generally admitted, that one of the ingredients of justice is disinterestedness. MR. MAC LAUREL. It is na admetted, Sir, arnang the pheelosophers of Edinbroo', that there is ony sic thing as desenterestedness in the warld, or that a mon can care for onything sae much as his ain sel: for ye mun observe, sir, every mon has his ain parteecular feelings of what is gude, an' beautifu', an' consentaneous to his ain indiveedual nature, an' desires to see every thing aboot him in that parteecular state which is maist conformable to his ain notions o' the moral an' poleetical fetness o' things. Twa men, sir, shall purchase a piece o' grund atween 'em, and ae mon shall cover his half wi' a park MR. MILESTONE. Beautifully laid out in lawns and clumps, with a belt of trees at the circumference, and an artifical lake in the centre. MR. MAC LAUREL. Exactly, sir: an' shall keep it a' for his ain sel: an' the other mon shall divide his half into leetle farms of twa or three acres MR. ESCOT. Like those of the Roman republic, and build a cottage on each of them, and cover his land with a simple, innocent, and smiling population, who shall owe, not only their happiness, but their existence, to his benevolence. MR. MAC LAUREL. Exactly, sir: an' ye will ca' the first mon selfish, an' the second desenterested; but the pheelosophical truth is semply this, that the ane is pleased wi' looking at trees, an' the other wi' seeing people happy and comfortable. It is aunly a matter of indiveedual feeling. A paisant saves a mon's life for the same reason that a hero or a footpad cuts his thrapple: an' a pheelosopher delivers a mon frae a preson, for the same reason that a tailor or a prime menester puts him into it; because it is conformable to his |